MUSIC OF A MORE PERFECT UNION: SYMPHONIC CONSTRUCTIONS OF AMERICAN NATIONAL IDENTITY, 1840–1870 Douglas William Shadle A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music. Chapel Hill 2010 Approved By: Mark Evan Bonds, Chair Annegret Fauser Jon Finson Mark Katz Philip Vandermeer ABSTRACT DOUGLAS SHADLE: Music of a More Perfect Union: Symphonic Constructions of American National Identity, 1840–1870 (Under the direction of Mark Evan Bonds) The genre of the symphony has long been recognized as a medium for constructing national identities in German, French, and Russian culture, yet little is known about the genre’s history in the United States. Between 1840 and 1870, the era of the first generation of American orchestral composers, it served as a potent means of expressing American national identity. During this period of American cultural history, two separate processes shaped conceptions of national identity: decolonization from Great Britain and a nascent sense of imperial expansionism. This dissertation explores how mid-century American symphonic composers musically constructed national identities reflecting these conceptions and argues that this practice continued well into the twentieth century. Composers who focused on decolonization generally employed one of two separate strategies. The first was emulation, or copying European symphonic models with the intention of continuing the symphonic tradition. George Frederick Bristow (1825– 1898), for example, wrote symphonies that might be mistaken for music by Mendelssohn or Schumann. The second strategy was exceptionalism, or selectively omitting traditional stylistic elements in order to pave new musical pathways. The exceptionalist William Henry Fry (1813–1864) developed an idiosyncratic style that eclectically blended progressive symphonic aesthetics, Italian opera, and American popular song. Each ii composer’s symphonies answered the question of how the United States should define itself with respect to the Old World. The composers who focused on expansionism were more concerned with how the United States should define itself with respect to the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Anthony Philip Heinrich (1781–1861), for example, constructed a national identity built on the precepts of Manifest Destiny. His symphonies assimilate an exotic musical style intended to represent Native Americans and the aura of the American landscape into the fabric of European classicism and American popular music. Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869) painted musical portraits of nations in Latin America that were heavily laced with continental American musical styles. These symphonies promoted the blossoming imperialist agenda of many Americans at mid-century. iii To Avery iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to many individuals and organizations, all of whom contributed in significant ways to the completion of this dissertation. I owe my advisor, Evan Bonds, an incalculable debt of gratitude, because he stuck with me until the end, despite my procrastination and sporadic work habits. I am grateful for his dedication, support, and encouragement. The other members of my dissertation committee, especially Mark Katz and Phil Vandermeer, gave me excellent feedback throughout the writing process and offered many helpful suggestions for improvement as this project grows. I received funding for this dissertation from several sources, each of which deserves separate thanks. The Library Company of Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania sponsored research on William Henry Fry and music in Philadelphia; a special round of thanks goes to James Green and Connie King at the Library Company. The UNC Graduate and Professional Student Federation and the UNC Smith Research Grant provided funding for research on Charles Jerome Hopkins at Harvard University. The UNC Royster Society of Fellows provided five years of full funding between 2004 and 2009; I am particularly indebted to Sandra Hoeflich, Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Education, for her support during that time. The Society for American Music provided travel funds for me to present my research at its annual conferences in 2007, 2008, and 2010. v The librarians at UNC made my work easy. Music librarians Phil Vandermeer and Diane Steinhaus accepted many requests to purchase the materials that I needed. The Interlibrary Borrowing division was very efficient with my requests and never let me down. Many friends and colleagues left an imprint on my work. My fellow cohorts from the fall of 2004 matriculating class challenged me time and again in seminars and beyond. Several scholars outside UNC offered support on specific aspects of my work and deserve thanks: Katherine Preston, Michael Pisani, Doug Bomberger, Charles Freeman, Joseph Horowitz, Travis Stimeling, and Sarah Gerk. The list of friends who offered moral support is too long to list, but I would like to thank Leslie Parkins for helping me see this thing through to the end. My wife, Karen, deserves the most thanks because she let me pursue what I love before making me get a real job. If it weren’t for her patience, kindness, encouragement, and love, I never would have finished. How she managed to take care of our infant son and finish her dissertation a year faster than I did will forever remain a source of inspiration for me. I watched her do it, but I couldn’t have done it myself. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. ix LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES ......................................................................................x INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 American National Identity and the Symphony .......................................................4 Constructions of National Identity in the American Symphony: An Overview ........................................................................9 Chapter I. POSTCOLONIAL ANXIETY, MUSIC, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY ......15 The Culture of Cosmopolitanism and Compositional Emulation ....................20 The Counter to Cosmopolitanism: Compositional Exceptionalism .................27 The Rise of the Symphony ...............................................................................35 The Symphony as Bearer of American National Identity ................................47 II. A NEW AMERICA: WILLIAM HENRY FRY’S EXCEPTIONALISM ......50 “The Genius of Our Own Hemisphere”: Democracy in Fry’s Conception of America ...................................................55 “Sound Originality” in Music ..........................................................................64 Fry’s Symphonies: Constructing a New America ...........................................73 A Symphonic Declaration of Independence ....................................................86 III. EUROPEAN MUSIC BORN ON AMERICAN SOIL: GEORGE FREDERICK BRISTOW’S NATIONALIST EMULATION ........................93 Against All Odds: Bristow’s Contretemps with the New York Philharmonic ....................................................................95 vii “American and Good”: Bristow’s Antebellum Symphonies .........................106 From Emulation to Alienation: Bristow and the New-York American Music Association .......................................................128 IV. EXPANDING THE NATION: IMPERIALIST TENDENCIES IN THE SYMPHONIES OF ANTHONY PHILIP HEINRICH AND LOUIS MOREAU GOTTSCHALK ..............................................................136 From Immigrant to Imperialist: The Native American Symphonies of Anthony Philip Heinrich ............................................................................138 Heinrich’s Depictions of Native Americans in The Mastodon ......................143 Stranger in a Strange Land: Heinrich’s Visions of America .........................157 The Symphonies of Louis Moreau Gottschalk as Instruments of Imperialism ........................................................................163 Gottschalk’s Pan-American Republicanism and the Moral Influence of Music ..................................................................166 Ennobling the Spirit and the Pan-American Ideal in Symphonie romantique and Á Montevideo ................................................174 Instruments of Imperialism ............................................................................187 V. CONSTRUCTING A NATIONAL SYMPHONIC HISTORY ....................195 SOURCES........................................................................................................................200 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1. Structure of Benjamin Carr’s Federal Overture (1794) .................................28 1.2. Structural Modeling of Frantisek Kocžwara’s The Battle of Prague (1788) in James Hewitt’s The Battle of Trenton (1797) .................................................................................31 1.3. Competing Genealogies of the European Symphony, ca. 1827–1852 ........................................................................................................39 2.1. Structure and Synopsis of Santa Claus: Christmas Symphony .......................67 2.2. Key Relationships in Santa Claus...................................................................71 3.1. Unconventional Sonata-Allegro